Liam Clarke: McCoy won’t be spooked into revelations

I don’t believe that the retired garda officer was ever a British agent, in any sensible meaning of the term. He just suffered two strokes of bad luck

We got a blast last week when a retired member of the garda special branch,
John McCoy, pleaded privilege when asked under oath if he knew Fred Holroyd,
a former British Military Intelligence officer with links to MI6. A long
story lies behind that question.

McCoy was giving evidence by videolink from Dublin in the trial at Belfast
Crown Court of Gerry McGeough, who has denied the attempted murder of a UDR
soldier 30 years ago. The former garda detective denied knowing Holroyd, but
also claimed privilege. Asked why, he replied: “I didn’t want to pursue it
to protect the state.”

He added: “My reputation has been linked to this man by numerous statements
and articles in the papers and this gentleman said he knew me.”

That is indeed the case. Holroyd has said that McCoy’s British intelligence
codename during the 1970s was “the Badger”, and that he was regarded